bruce johnson

Bubb, Where at in the Mother Lode? I am in Oakdale, there are a few of us scattered around the area. - Bruce

I have tutorials on my website for sharpening both French edgers and edge bevelers. With some browsers just reading them on the site will will not display the illustrations. Feel free to download them. Here is the link to that page - https://brucejohnsonleather.com/tutorials/ Thanks, Bruce

The clear blade In believe is the "sapphire" blade that Tandy sold for a while. An even shorter lived offering than the "ruby" blade so that may indicate something. The blade has some collector value to a Tandy or swivel knife collector. The swivel knife is a Hackbarth and could have made by either Ray Hackbarth up until the mid 1960s or later Ellis Barnes who acquired the rights to use the Hackbarth name. Ray Hackbarth was one of the first to make stainless steel stamps on any scale and have a few versions of swivel knives he sold. Nice knives with comfortable yokes.

Here is my current but evolving mental algorithm when people call me about a splitter, my first question is going to be - What kind of leather? At least 4 times a week I get a call from somebody that wants to make wallets or clutch purses and split down upholstery leather or chrome tans to do it. Those leathers are too stretchy and soft and no fixed blade pull splitter will do it reliably. They need Something with body like vegtan, latigo, bridle, etc What width do you want to end up with? - Most people can split up to three inches reliably provided you aren't wanting to end up with a thin split of under 2 maybe 3 oz.. (You can sort of do that if you start with heavier leather and split upside down, but you have to level off the leather in one pass and then have enough left that the flesh side is meaty enough to take the pull. Not ideal). You can go from 16 to 14 on stirrup leathers, down to maybe 4 oz with decent widths. At some point the wider you go the narrower you can split because pulling on that thinner grain side will deform it. I have people with a Chase splitter that can do 6'' widths but it takes really good blade maintenance and some body strength or wide jaw clamps/pliers for a grip when you go wider. Leveling is easier than splitting. I have leveled 11" pieces though a 12" Chase on a fresh edge.If you wanted to do anything up to stirrup leathers, then I start talking about the pros and cons of the different pull through splitters. Crank splitters - There are limitations. These were built to level and split shoe soles. They like heavy material. Most will not feed leathers under 6-7 oz very well, especially into a slightly dull blade in any significant width. There are still good crank splitters around with all the parts and good blades. As far as parts and service, some parts are available, some aren't. Service - several of us have them and they are not all that hard to adjust once you understand the mechanics if all the parts are there and nothing broken. Currently I have never seen as many crank splitters on Ebay ever as there are right now. I have never seen asking and starting prices like now. Likewise I have never seen so many crank splitters on Ebay missing parts, vital parts broken, and the warning - "The handle turns but I know nothing about it. Look at the pictures carefully. sold as-is". I've got two Landis here spoken for that are priced for less than some of the broken Americans recently have traded hands for on Ebay. The other factor there is that you want to do 6 inch widths and these have 6" blades. They will do 5 to maybe 5-1/2 inches, but 6 inches is out. soooo...... Bigger than 6" and needs to feed. Two options besides industrial band knife splitters. - old school - wide Randall splitters are still out there. Somebody here probably has a great grandfather who cranked stuff through them and they are still rolling. The guys that have these like them and the guys that buy them know they are going to pay some bucks to own one. An 18'' Randall with a good blade will likely be about what a 14" Cobra is priced at. The tried and trues are not as much as 10 years ago, but the market is still up there. You want something new - that leaves one in my mind. - In a big circle, here is what I tell people that get this far. You always have options - "You can buy thinner leather or call Steve at Cobra". Not to sound like a smart ass, but that is where I'm at. I know several people with Cobras that like them.

Looks great, Ross! You will like it!

Ross, My oldest original catalog is and 1895 and the wood bottom (model #87) is in there. One of my friends told me that they seemed to have dropped out in about 1910 or so. I have several frames but mostly wore out blades. Not worth the price to get new blades made for them at present. When I do get a good one, they sell to Australia. These make a nice splitter and the Australians seem to have a penchant for them.

Ross, I am not a metallurgist, but here it how it was explained to me. These and Chase pattern are among the oldest style splitters and according to a couple old guys that taught me, the steel was small batch hand mixed crucible steel. The carbon was not always evenly distributed and resulted in some areas that were a bit more prone to pitting. Also Rose knives can be the same way. Still the resulting steel is pretty hard good edge retention.

Looks good. Shim between the blade and frame to raise the low side up. Sharpen with your fine abrasive of choice going through the grits to end with a clean mirror finish. Flat on the bottom, follow the bevel on top. Blades don't have to be around water to pit. Acids in leather can do it, hand carboned steel will pit some, Work it until you have a clean edge with not pitting on the edge or just behind it. Pits further up usually are worked out before they get to be an edge.

I'm with Matt S above. First try i went in the front door of the office, talked to a manager. I just needed plates to stick over dies to use a shop press as an improvised clicker. He said he's have to run it by the engineer to see what specs I'd need. Yeah right, that'll happen. Under the guise of "just checking back" the next day, a dozen doughnuts to the receptionist got me pointed to the shop crew in the flat stock shed. Told them what i wanted. Javier figured 1" cold rolled stock would be plenty (he was not the engineer). He said he'd had some end cuts by 4:30 and to stop back. Twelve pack o' Bud Light = Javier and Armando loading the pieces cut to sizes I wanted plus a few more, sans invoice.

I am currently testing a a few rust preventing products. You all have convinced me to go ahead and order a can. Around here I can only find the liquid in the bottle now, and as reported it is a diluted version of the paste. As I wrote above, I have not found the liquid to have the same rust preventative ability vs the paste. We are going into our damp season here and I might as add the paste into the test as well. Hit me up in April or May, and if things go right we can share some results.

Then is it likely because you have the rollers as close together as they will go on this one. The teeth on the gears are long enough to allow for some expansion and still engage. Once they bottom out with each other, that is apt to be the limiting factor in your case. To clarify for for me, are you feeding 3/4 oz leather in and trying to split that further? I have not seen very many that will feed much less than maybe 6 or 7 oz leather very well. You can sure start thicker and take a lot off to shave down to almost paper thin grain splits, but can't start too thin and feed thinner leather to end up the same.

They will go wider than your bell knife, they will both level skive/level split the ends of straps. The wood bottom can do an infinite tapered or lap skive.

Post some pictures. The tension springs should be the same size. There are is an adjustment to close up the gap between the bottom roller and blade, and another adjustment to close up the gap between the top roller and blade. Then there is factor that the bottom bearing block is part of the gear cover so that gear cover needs to be able to float up and down. A lot of things could be at play here.

I refurbish these quite a bit. Feel free to ask questions as you go. The wood bottom splitters are very simple and some people really like them. The Randall Chase is a great splitter, and one of my personal favorites as a user. They can be a little trickier to break down and clean, then rebuild and adjust but once you've got them figured out it is intuitive.

I used to use Flitz a lot. I have used in tumbling media, on polishing wheels, and applied by cloth. My purely unscientific experience is that the new "green/eco" formula in the squeeze bottle is not as effective a rust and tarnish preventative as the old paste in a tube. Used to be 6 months easy, now it is 6 weeks at times. I am trying a few other products right now, and am a few months away from being able to say anything.

As far as I know Barry King may be the only one making new ones currently. I agree with Big Sioux Saddlery on her assessment of the modern CS Osborne creasers. WTH CS Osborne? They must have lost the patterns on how they were made back when they worked??? I have seen the demand wax and wane. I can credit a few top end makers who preach creasing straps and the orders come in. It slows a bit and then somebody else brings them up and it goes again. I will politely offer a different point of view with Big Sioux on one thing. I don't think the prices are relatively low vs. other vintage tools based on demand alone. I think it the nature of the tool itself and the supply. They don't have an edge to maintain like an edge beveler or French edger. There was not the issue of poor or excessive sharpening along they way so they tend to last longer. Nearly every old estate set from someone in the trade has a complete set. They bought #1-5 edger set and then probably the larger sized range set as well. By sheer numbers there is a bunch that have survived in pretty good shape relative to other tools in the kit. For a working set of vintage creasers there isn't much tracking down or tuning up needed.

Chas, Sorry I missed your message earlier and I don't always read every post. As a topic moderator we we have some editing capabilities. We can move, pin to the top, feature, hide, lock, or delete posts. Unfortunately the one thing I cannot find a way to do is selectively edit the content within an individual post. I don't know if that is a permission level thing with moderators or by design to keep the control of content with the original poster. I will see what I can find for you.

If this is the same formulation of Dr Jacksons I used to have on hand, it was a soft paste. Problem I had was when it got too warm in the old shop (without AC) it would liquefy and separate some. It didn't take much heat to liquefy everything, stir it up good, and let it cool in the refrigerator stirring every so often until pretty solid. Good stuff.

I am going to throw a few more maker names in your mix. The two unmarked and unplated stamps are in "no man's land" technically but..McMillen would sure be my guess for the darker one for sure. The other may or may not be. There is no way to tell for sure but McMillen was/sort of still is the longest running stamp maker ever and except for the early ones - rarely marked. These could have been made by one of the more minor good stamp makers but odds on just by the numbers of stamps produced - McMillen. Hackbarth stamps are sometimes questioned whether they are orginal Ray Hackbarths or later ones made by Ellis Barnes/ more recently Lonnie Height. There are some overlaps but here's where I'm at based on handling a bunch and talking to the old guys. Stamp length - 3-7/8" - Ellis Barnes for sure. 4-1/8 - Ellis made some for sure, all of the Ray Hackbarths I've had are this long or better. Can't go just by length Number on the shank - Ray Hackbarth. They tell me the early Ray Hackbarths weren't numbered but when he started mail order he numbered them. If they have a number - Ray Hackbarth. No number - could be either and look at other characteristics. Maker Marking - Elfrida, AZ - Ellis for sure . Phoenix - Ray Hackbarth was in Phoenix but Ellis marked some Phoenix too - keep looking Font - I have about 100 Ray Hackbarths right now and every one I grab has the "Stainless" in a larger font size than the R Hackbarth/Phoenix font. The representatives from Ellis - same size font all the way through. "The hyphen-dot" - Something I have recently noted. Every one of my current Ellis stamps have a small 'tick' mark before and after the line of the name font and the line of the city/state font. "Stainless" has a short hyphen or mark as well. I do not see that on any of the original Ray Hackbarths.

Yep, its a stippler

Just some caveats with selling it on Ebay or wherever. Do not short yourself on packing and shipping charges. Be prepared to take some time and material cost to pack it right or you will eat it. The handle definitely will arrive in two pieces if left on. There are a lot of other things sticking out asking to be broken off. They can't be taken off. Use plenty of box and material to prevent shifting.These are heavy, old, and brittle. Packing peanuts and crumpled paper are not a good choice. Alternating Insulating layers of cardboard and bubble wrap are a step up. There is nothing more disheartening to a buyer than having one arrive with a big hole or two in the box and bag of broken off parts taped to the outside. That is with a good postal worker somewhere in the chain, otherwise they toss the parts and best o' luck. The weight of the top roller is supported on each end by the shafts extending through the bearing blocks. Sort of a weak link even if crated. That little continual bounce in shipping can shear the shafts cleanly off at either or both ends. You don';t find that damage until you open it. The USPS and UPS consider that "Shock damage" and/or "vibration damage" and deny insurance claims, and insurance appeals, and further insurance appeals... Sometimes they just say it was broken before shipping and the seller disguised it and packed it anyway. Take it apart and pack the top roller separately. Don't feel like UPS and USPS insurance will save you - they won't unless they absolutely lose it. Damage claims paid out in the experience of several of us are fewer and far between.

The gear cover has the bearing block for the bottom roller cast into as I am visualizing it in my mind here. It floats up and down with varying thicknesses of leather, but should sit deeper into the notch. A little grind and file work so it will fit in there and float up and down should be the ticket now.

Realize that the reason it is doing this is because the edge of the blade is sitting behind the dead top center of the rollers. By design they do sit back a fraction. Some more than others and some splitters are just finicky and need that blade edge closer to dead top center. I go forward a little at a time and just play with it. Too far forward and you can always back up. Now the caveats. You need to be careful of the clearance between the blade edge and bottom roller. Too close and you say bad words as you hear the feed wheel biting into the blade edge. The old rule is "thickness of a credit card" clearance space between blade edge and bottom roller.and that is what I shoot for. Be careful of the top roller and notice where the top roller starts to make contact with the blade edge. Put a tape or tag on the splitter to ID the setting and this is "no-man's land".

Most of the blades end up with a flat grind and realistically, that very edge will cut if it is sharp no matter if it is hollow or flat ground. A lot of people get hung on hollow grinding. Right up to the point where they take the blade to the local guy who does a pretty good job of grinding everything else, and totally mucks out their splitter blade. A good flat grind is easier and works. I have maybe got two that still had a hollow grind that had been in the trenches. I am not in the shop yet to check my thinking is that the Landis has the shorter blade rest than American and the blades extend further off the back. On the Americans some I get with will come with key stock or bar stock to back up the blades as they get shorter. I used one for a couple years that the side hold downs just caught the blade and it had a piece of about 1-1/4" bar stock behind it to catch the backup screws. No center screw.

Did it do the same with the old blade and what did the ends of the original blade look like?